Illogical AI

[lordhoff]

In general, the game is enjoyable but why do AI's have to be so illogical? I mean, this is almost as bad as Total war (TW) (where I once tested it by attacking from the British Isles to France, then Spain, then North Africa, and watched the AI chase me all over the place). An AI should NOT FOCUS ON THE HUMAN PLAYER! The human player should be treated exactly as if it were an AI player. In this game, as the Galici, in the first few turns, Carthage showed up with it's entire navy and three cavalry units. Since Carthage starts with very limited gold (at least when I played Carthage) and NO cavalry units, this seems, at best, a bit weird. Now, would any ruler, sane or otherwise, place his entire military on the fringes against a harmless bunch of nomads when Rome is threatening or even Egypt? Why is it so difficult to program an AI to be logical? I did this with board games - creating tables and rolling dice when I was forced to play myself nearly 30 years ago. I find that, somehow, the AI is able to build two dozen armies when, if playing as the human with the same country, you are lucky to to have six. Why is gold seemingly unlimited for the AI? As Carthage, very early in the game, I make a treaty with the Galici to see that they have six cities in places where there are none and still have all their nomad units. If you ever played them, then you'd know that this is absolutely impossible - there simply is not enough population to support this (building five nomad units or settler units to form these cities). Plus, they had a complete road network. Do you know how long that takes with a single settler unit that one doesn't have for around ten turns? I see experienced hoplite units, trained to the gills, annihilated by skirmishers. These types of things make what could be a very good game into a joke. Oh, and yes, I tested it in noob. Apparently all that does is allow more random supplies (gold, coal, etc). I don't know, I had just hoped that MATRIX/Slitherine or whoever developed this game had made the leap from a Total war type game (where even the smallest, weakest kingdoms can conquer the world) to something more realistic. To be sure, it is more faithful to history then TW but still uses a heavily cheating AI for balance. My belief is that this is entirely not needed. Let's just leave it that I'm a bit disappointed.

[pavelk]

Hello lordhoff,
welcome to our forum.

There is couple of things I would probably clear up:

• AI is not focused on the human player. It behaves similarly to other AI players. If AI chased you, it was probably because you were the easiest or most accessible target.
• I cannot speak of that particular game you were playing but Carthage is at the beginning of the game in better position than Rome and definitely does not have to worry about any threat because it is the master of seas.
• In higher difficulty levels resource production of human player is reduced (per the difficulty), however (as you said) this is not your case if you played on NOOB level.
• In lower difficulty levels, AI is less aggressive, uses its resources less wisely and you have bonuses for your own resources production. You also have higher chance of positive random events (like you said) and lower chance of negative ones.
• You need to set your birth rate support to 100% (locally and globally) if you play as one of the tribes. This will pretty quickly give you citizens to build a settler, which can build another city and so on. It creates pretty quickly a domino effect which allos you to spread.
• AIs also trade with each other. Did you trade?

[lordhoff]

Well, to be fair, it was TW, not this game that chased me about. I just used that as an example. I guess it's just my imagination then with AR, it sure seemed that whoever I played, the AI focused on me. For instance, when I played the German tribes, Rome went north right away with most of their units (not a problem, really, I just retreated eastward until Rome gave up). Sicily was ignored. As Carthage, it was the focus. With Egypt (Ptolom whatever ), it was again ignored and the Balkans was focused on. With the Bosporus Kingdom, Egypt (hey, I can spell that) bypassed Asia minor for me. Well, perhaps I just need more practice - as I said, my armies are always very much smaller then those of the AI and as you said, that may be what is attracting them. Gold, iron, and population seem to be key. Perhaps I put too many resources into cities and research. Time will tell (I hope).

Tribes and birthrate: I did think of that but dismissed it due to the lack of gold. I'll try that next time I'm playing a tribe.

Yes, I did trade once trade routes were made. Sometimes, depending on who I was, that took quite a while, though. As you may have noticed, after the big three, I opted for out of the way places so, yeah, it should take a while.

Just to be clear, I've played the game for several campaigns and I will be continuing. My frustration with what I believe to be illogical AI choices dates long before this game. Years ago, Slitherine came out with a chariots based series and I was very impressed with the victory conditions. Some could claim victory for just surviving, say, 20 turns. I really liked that - I was hoping that tribal groups would in AR would have the victory conditions less tied in to the big 3.

I am impressed with the lack of bugs - the only one of note is the often occurring one where, after ending the turn, Microsoft is advised followed by a reboot. I'd think it my PC except that the only time it happens (probably about 12 times now) is when playing AR. You probably can't understand what I am talking about from this description but I just can't remember and, while annoying, I don't lose anything since I save prior to ending the turn so I guess it didn't make a lasting impression.

Thanks for the quick reply. I really didn't expect that due to me ranting.

[pavelk]

Hello again lordhoff,
I would perfectly understand your frustration if the game was focused on human. I can really ensure you that Aggressors is not that case. AI does treat human players the same way as other AI players, moreover each AI player works on its own and does not even know if another faction is AI or human.
On the other hand, I would guess that AI focused on you in your games based on your situation. If you were not a big competitor for him (in power comparison), he would probably first try to conquer you. AI does not see your units through Fog of war but neither does it for other AI competitors so when deciding in which direction to expand, it takes into consideration how many enemy units close to borders he sees and what is the comparable power (the same information you can see in Diplomacy window).

For tribes, citizens (aka population) is the key. Once you build first city, increase the slider in State window to max. This will allow you to build another settler (or nomad) in just few turns.
I also recommend to improve cities (by improvements) only when it is necessary (you don't have to build every improvement in every city). Consider what it brings to you. One of the improvements which is really vital is Trading.

All the factions share the same victory conditions - military superiority, Technological dominance, Country development and Overall victory. One called "Victory points" is different for each player (every player gets points for tiles and cities conquered but the number of points differ and also the number of required points differ). For example, you can win the game with Iberian tribes by conquering the whole Iberian peninsula only (and nearby territories).

Slitherine is just a publisher of this game, not a developer, so Aggressors has nothing to do with any other games published by Slitherine.

I am really curious about that rebooting. I very much doubt it has anything to do with Aggressors but I admit that it would be a coincidence if it happened already 12 times. Isn't this just because of the MS Windows updates which have not been finished? And because you probably play Aggressors for hours it notifies you to finish the update?

Have a nice Sunday.
Pavel

[lordhoff]

I spent half the night trying to find this on "event viewer" (Win10) - I think I have but am not absolutely sure. I saved it on notepad (text file). I don't think I can attach it, however. If it is something you'd like to see, perhaps there is a way. If correct, it had something to do with a bug check (whatever that is). Anyway, it says, "the computer has rebooted from a bug check".
Updates with Win10 have been problematic since it came out so it could be what has been happening. I wouldn't be able to see the message so it'd likely just start updating and may automatically reboot but, would that cause an error message ? As best as I can recall, it says that an error has occurred requiring a reboot. This will happen automatically after an error report is compiled and sent to Microsoft.

[pavelk]

Would you be able to send me the events from "applications"?
Here is how to do it and my email is info@kubat-software.com

[GiveWarAchance]

What TW game you played? Some TW games have that issue and some don't.

[lordhoff]

What TW game you played? Some TW games have that issue and some don't.

Medieval I/II and Rome I/II. Medieval II is the one I tested that on.

[lordhoff]

Would you be able to send me the events from "applications"?
Here is how to do it and my email is info@kubat-software.com

Done. Also attached are the text file I saved yesterday and a dxdiag that I saved after one of the errors.

[GiveWarAchance]

Ya medieval has the most dogpiling on the player and there isn't any diplomacy, even though it is a really good game. If you get the Stainless Steel mod, the game seems much more manageable and you can play any nation.
Rome 2 is not so bad. I play it on hard which is a reasonable challenge. I only get dogpiled if I cause too many diplomatic negatives with many factions but you can pick a faction with a diplomatic bonus so you actually make too many allies.

[pavelk]

I will have a look today and come back to you for sure.

I will have a look today and come back to you for sure.

[lordhoff]

I will have a look today and come back to you for sure.

I will have a look today and come back to you for sure.

Well, as you expected, it's likely has nothing to do with the game other then chance (the game is used for long time periods) - it happened when I tried to shut down the computer this morning and the game had not been open for hours.

[pavelk]

There are some diagnostics tool worth checking out but it really seems like some issues with updates.
If you encounter any issues with the game direction (and the error windows pops up), please send us the report. It helps not only to identify the issue but in many cases we also help player to fix it and continue playing.

[lordhoff]

I will and thanks.